UAC Pass

A program needs to be elevated and always makes UAC prompt you?
UAC Pass allows to give or take back administrative rights on a specific application once and for all, with User Account Control active at the same time but without any prompt.

Drag and Drop a program (or a shortcut to it) onto uacpass.exe, Accept security exception (for the last time about this program), Choose where to make the shortcut, and/or add it to session start.

To undo it, drag and drop the shortcut(s) made with UAC Pass onto uacpass.exe, it will go to the trash, delete the scheduled task(s), and UAC Pass will ask you if you wish to restore a classic shortcut on your desktop, in your Taskbar or Start Menu.

You will need to validate a security exception at the creation or destruction of the shortcut and scheduled task.

Why did I made this tool?

Windows Vista brings User Account Control, a bit heavy, Windows Seven keeps it with less annoyment. Nevertheless, when it's about systematic elevation required for an application, it gets quickly boring.
Most of the time users shut down UAC, but this is a solution that requires care because it's giving administrative privilege to all applications at once, including malwares.UAC Pass was created with in mind reducing annoyment bring by UAC, without deactivating it.

This tool needs you to think twice in order not to become the weak point of your security via the links it creates.
UAC-free shortcuts will allow the linked program to execute with the highest elevation. The better is to avoid programs which connect to internet services that you don't trust.

Most of the time, UAC Pass is usefull with older programs, thoses requiring XP mode or small utilities like Ccleaner, CPU-Z or FRAPS, or programs like cmd and regedit system tools...
In other words, use it with trusted programs requiring systematic elevation.

If you wish to learn more about UAC Pass, you can visit the FAQ, and if it's not enough you can send me a message through contact form.

New in version 1.7:

Version 1.7a corrects a bug that was closing UAC Pass' window when dropping some files onto it, if the tasks' list wasn't opened.
Amongst news

Compatibility with domain's sessions,

Settings are recorded in a file rather than registry,

Added a list of scheduled tasks created with UAC Pass where you can launch, delete, delete all or open task scheduler,

Added several color themes, default one has more contrasted colors,

Added possibility to record window position in the settings file,

Added possibility to force UAC Pass to use its own folder instead of temporary one for the temporary files it creates,

Pictures are now uncompressed to memory rather than to disk.

Main interface

Like the older version it is possible to make shortcuts to UAC Pass with different options than those predefines and that we can specifie into command line arguments (or add them at the end of shortcut's target field). This Main Interface was created to ease their creation.
Check relevant options, then click this icon which will open a small window which will propose you to make the shortcut on your desktop, pinned to Taskbar or to Start Menu (under Windows Vista, the link is added to Quick Launch or added to Start Menu).
With this method you'll be able to drag & drop your programs on this new shortcut to create UAC-free shortcuts.

You can make an UAC-Free shortcut to UAC Pass, which will escape the need of elevation prompt. Nevertheless, you will have to make it without argument and to use Main Interface 'bottom box' (Scheduled tasks can launch programs with arguments, but we can't launch a scheduled task and add to it 'on the fly' arguments, like files).
To make it more confortable, I make it possible for you to save checked option into a file (and to erase it at will), this way at each opening UAC Pass will be pre-configured as you like and you'll only have to drag and drop your programs on the 'bottom box'.

Mini-interface

It opens if you drop a program onto uacpass.exe, or a shortcut to it without any destination argument. It allows to choose what to do after the creation or destruction of the Scheduled task.

Without interface

If you always use UAC Pass the same way, it could be more confortable to make a shortcut to UAC Pass with the Main Interface or manually, with destination arguments: to make it on desktop (-ondk), pinned to Taskbar (-pin2tb) or to Start menu (-pin2sm), and/or added to Session Start (-startup).
You'll fall back like version 1.0 behavior, which was:
- drop a program (or a shortcut to it) on uacpass.exe (or a shortcut to it),
- accept elevation prompt: task and shortcut are destroyed / created where you told it.

Features:

Portable application (no installation required), not necessary to use shortcuts it creates,

* McAfee-GW-Edition v2010.1D "correctly" detect that executable is compressed with a "modified" UPX version. (More precisely, I use UPX 308w with following arguments, which makes it try for several compressions and keep the best one: --ultra-brute). Thanks a lot McAfee for this very useful warning!